When I visited the roof of Eclipse Awards Ltd on Alexander Street this summer, it looked like this:
Alexander Street roof in summer 2008
The roof was quite old, and in order to make the building more energy efficient, Eclipse Awards replaced the bitumen roof with a white roof (thermoplastic polyolefin [TPO]). Instead of absorbing sunlight and heating the building, like a black roof does, white roofs reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere, and they don’t transfer nearly as much heat into the building. This should help Eclipse Awards save substantially on their cooling costs in the summer. The three skylights will let in natural light, which will also help save energy and money.
In addition, Eclipse Awards wanted to add a small green roof to act as a demonstration for other businesses that might want to adopt this technology. The first step was to build the frame and line it with a drainage layer:
Alexander in progress
